Two of the biggest names in Hollywood unite in new movie You're Cordially Invited – and let us tell you this, it's a bit of a bloodbath.
Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon star as respective leaders on opposite ends of a hilarious feud. Both are planning an important family wedding – Will's Jim is preparing for his daughter Jenni's nuptials, while Reese's Margot is set to ensure her sister Neve has the perfect wedding day. Alas, both weddings are double booked over the same weekend, with hi-jinks and a laugh-a-minute rivalry between Jim and Margot ensuing. The duo take wedding crashing and sabotage to a whole new level.
Expect drunken wedding speeches and cringe performances of classic Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers tune Islands In The Stream – Will even wrestles an alligator. What more could you want from a comedy movie? Answer: women running the show when it comes to said movie.
You're Cordially Invited is co-produced by Reese's production company Hello Sunshine, which works to centre female-led stories, fighting the male-dominated narratives that so often take precedence in Hollywood. And with Will Ferrell, a trans and feminist ally who went on record saying women should run the world, how could Reese go far wrong?
“I think it's important that women are part of the creation of art, because we bring a different perspective, you know, through many different life experiences,” she told GLAMOUR, praising the “incredible female producers” on You're Cordially Invited who worked alongside her and Will.
While a comedy at heart, the film also navigates Reese's character Margot's feelings of frustration and isolation as a woman who has bucked against the traditional expectations of her family and rejected marriage and other conventional milestones that so many of us feel pressured to tick off.
“There's something in this movie about modern female attitudes towards marriage, because it sort of runs the gamut – whether you should get married, [whether] you shouldn't get married, [whether] you love the traditional aspects of it, or whether that feels antiquated to you. So that's a discussion that lives inside the film, that feels very contemporary.”
Will and Reese sat down to take GLAMOUR's Bestie Test, which spanned the importance of feminist allyship on set and filming that alligator wrestling scene.
GLAMOUR: Will, tell us everything about filming wrestling an alligator.
Reese: Was it harder or easier than a bear? Didn't you say you wrestled a bear?
Will: I had a bear chase me! Not a real bear. But [the alligator wrestle was] quite strenuous, the pretend alligator was quite heavy, and moved like a real alligator, I imagine. Yeah, it was an arduous day, but you could feel between Reese's reaction and how she was ordering me around… I was like, 'oh, there's a really good chance this scene will be funny'.
GLAMOUR: Will, what surprised you the most about working with Reese?
Will: I would say that with Hello Sunshine and how much Reese does as a producer, as you know, a lot of the episodic stuff she's done recently that it was so fun to get in the comedy battleground with her, and to see that she is as funny an actress as anyone I've ever worked with.
I loved it because we both were in these scenes, and while we're saying ridiculous things and screaming at each other. It's a heightened context, and yet she's playing it as real as I am, and that's what I think is at the heart of any good comedy.
GLAMOUR: Reese, Will has been dubbed as a feminist ally, most likely because he went on record saying that women should run the world…
Will: It's true.
GLAMOUR: How have you seen him show up for women on set, and live that truth?
Reese: Will is the ultimate ally, just in terms of the generosity on set, of really listening to my perspective, the other female producers perspective, also lifting up other people's ideas. He's just a generous soul and a generous human.
You don't have to be when you've been established for years and years, and you're known as this person who makes movies happen and his comedy is what drives us getting into these films. He doesn't have to take the time, but he really does, and also, for all the young people too, he sets a really good example of this straddling this line of getting the work done, but also having this little childish excitement to still jump off the edge of a dock onto a boat.
I've always talked about how much energy you had to stay late and do physical comedy. I'd be tired… I think it keeps you young and mentally flexible. You're just not in any rigid ideas about what comedy is.
GLAMOUR: Will, is Reese a romantic or a cynic?
Will: I think Reese is a romantic, yes.
Reese: I think you're right, don't tell anybody!
Will: Yeah, that's a great way to classify it. She's a romantic, but don't tell anyone. She doesn't want you to know, but she really is.
Reese: I seem really tough.
Will: Yeah, she does.
GLAMOUR: Reese, who would make a better wedding planner, you or Will?
Reese: I would just give both of us an F. Don't hire either one of us.
Will: I'm interesting that way only because…
Reese: Are you organised?!
Will: I can be, I can be easygoing, but then it's like, 'hold on, I don't think that matches that'.
Reese: Are you right about that?
Will: A lot of the time I am, yeah.
GLAMOUR: The devil is in the details?
Will: Yes!
Reese: You're the wild card too. You think of something kind of out of the box.
GLAMOUR: Will, what would Reese's karaoke song of choice be?
Reese: I'm mentally telling you my song…
Will: Anything from Adele… Rolling In The Deep.
Reese: You're so close.
Will: Rock You Like A Hurricane?
Reese: I mean you're nearly there.
GLAMOUR: What would it be?
Reese: No Diggity by Blackstreet and Dr Dre.
GLAMOUR: Reese, what is Will's top party trick?
Reese: I think he shows up in crazy costumes. We've seen it before, it'll happen again.
Will: I know in college, my favourite party trick was to pretend like I was going to throw up on people, that I was super intoxicated. I could play drunk really well… Kind of like you [Reese] in the movie, you saddle up the next one and they're like ‘get away, look out, give him a wide berth!’
GLAMOUR: Will, who would Reese want to play her in her biopic?
Reese: This is so easy.
Will: To play Reese Witherspoon, in the Reese Witherspoon story?
[Both whisper, GLAMOUR warns them they are breaking the Bestie Test rules]
Will: Denzel Washington.
GLAMOUR: Who has more charisma?!
Reese: Also, funny.
Will: Also funny!
Reese: Dead serious, plays the everyman.
Will: Oscar nominated, multiple times. Winner.
Reese: Winner!
Will: Winner!
This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.
You're Cordially Invited is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video from 30 January.
